Buck Age Structure Management

"Buck age structure management" is the regulation of antlered buck harvest in an effort to reduce the harvest mortality rate of one or more buck age classes. The objective is to try to provide a better opportunity for bucks to reach older ages.

The following links provide background information to help you better understand this deer management issue:

Implementing buck age structure management in New Hampshire would require significant changes to deer seasons. While the percentage of older-aged bucks in the buck kill would go up, the total number of antlered bucks killed would initially go down, and may or may not come back up.

Little change would be noticed in the timing and intensity of the rut

Buck bag limits could reduce the buck harvest in New Hampshire but probably not as much as many people think

Some methods of buck age structure management would likely need adjusting over time as results are evaluated

The impact of antler point restrictions (APRs) is very dependent on what APR is chosen